


Pulled Back

by Ryumaru



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Coping, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gen, Nightmares, Panic Attacks, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2016-06-30
Packaged: 2018-07-19 05:10:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7346368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ryumaru/pseuds/Ryumaru
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Watchpoint: Gibraltar. 1:33 a.m. </p>
<p>Tracer can't sleep. It's a problem she's had before. But Winston's always been there to help, and now she can't find him. Thankfully, she has an Omnic friend who has helped others through something like this before. </p>
<p>A burden shared is a burden halved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pulled Back

_Clouds_

_harsh sunlight_

_a shud-_

_oh no_

_-der_

_metal rattles_

_a plate shears_

_glass begins to crack_

_no_

_not this-_

_a plate shears_

_-again_

_clouds_

_harsh sunlight_

_-der_

_metal rattles_

_high keening cuts the air_

_a shud-_

_I'm coming undone where am I when am I what's happening to_

With a jolt, Lena bolts awake, biting back a scream as her nightmare's grip on her body slips. The weight of her chronal accelerator – just on the edge of oppressive, having been trapped under the insulating blankets for some time now – makes it harder to breathe. Still, her chest rises. And it falls. Rapidly. Her pulse pounds in her ears. She can hear her own shallow, panting breaths as she slowly comes to her senses. 

Waking up from a nightmare is far too visceral a reminder of what it felt like to come back from...

… from _that._

Her brain has scabbed over most of the memories of what it was like between moments, but the void, in its glaring, intense, painful blue, still lurks behind her eyes. On most days it's only a small spark, visible only when she glances for too long at a bare lightbulb and blinks. Others, it bites down, catching her throat in its jaws and choking her. It hounds her until she is too exhausted to evade sleep anymore, outlasting her ability to rewind herself to wakefulness. Those days, those nights, she wakes up trying to hold on to reality.

Shaking, Lena clutches at herself, wrapping her arms around her torso like a drowning woman scrabbling for the edge of a boat. Fingers brushing, clawing at bare skin does little to help. She forces herself upright, unfocused eyes only taking in the soft light of the accelerator. Winston designed it to be soothing, to pulse softly in a calming rhythm, but-

\- Winston.

_Where's Winston_

She needs him. Needs the deep rumble of his voice and the brush of his fur. It makes the unreality go away, pushes back the void. 

_Find Winston_

The first few days had been hellish, leaving her wondering where and when she was and if she wasn't hallucinating, her fragile human mind desperately trying to make sense of the things it had experienced. He had been her anchor, her shelter, calmly talking her through the mechanics of it in precise, eloquent words that would have been cold and clinical from anyone else. 

_Winston_

Quivering, Lena trips out of her tangled bedsheets and makes for the door. The cool carpet under her bare feet feels hostile and clingy. Tile would have been worse, she thinks, trying to focus her thoughts away from the nightmare. 

_Find-_

_metal rattles_

_shears_

_-Winston_

_Find Winston_

She knows her thoughts are looping. The sensation of her mind careening out of control is familiar, too familiar. It's as though the neurons are screaming, caught in their own nightmares. 

Her fist slams into the control panel, popping the door open with a faint push of air. Her uncooperative feet stop, stammer, and she falls-

Smooth, warm metal, faintly humming with energy, catches her. 

“Ah.” The voice is synthesized, or it would have been called that before Omnics became so commonplace. Even in a single syllable, it is modulated with ever-so-slightly-inhuman precision, to convey an exact meaning. But it is still gentle, personable, three steps out of the uncanny valley, just enough to feel... real. “I apologize,” says Zenyatta, holding her steady. “I was passing and heard noise. I have no wish to intrude....” 

He leaves the question hanging, unspoken, in the air. It takes a moment for Lena's senses to return, to focus on the harmonics. Her mind shifts back towards reality and brings back her ability to string words together. 

“I... I need to find.” She catches herself, swallows, stops herself from gasping and choking. “Winston. Need to find Winston.” 

Zenyatta's face, so lacking in human articulation, shifts gently so that the light on it changes. His visage becomes concerned, and a little regretful. “He has left the Watchpoint, I am afraid. He will not return for at least an hour.” 

Lena's breath begins to hitch. 

_Gone_

_Winston_

_Go-_

_high keening_

_-ne_

_where_

Slowly, Lena feels herself shift in space. Blinking and trying to focus, she realizes that Zenyatta has himself moved. His legs have uncrossed, a strange position to see them in, and he stands instead of levitates. His hands are on her shoulders, and he leans slightly forward, keeping space between them – space enough to breathe, thankfully, very thankfully – but connecting them by proximity. 

“You do not seem well.” 

“I'm fine. Just need-”

“Miss Oxton.” Zenyatta's voice becomes firmer. “Lena. If I may. You are not well.” He pauses, tilts his head, and he slowly, patiently slips his hands down her shoulders and arms to encompass her own as they shake. “I have seen this happen before. Focus on the sound of my voice.” 

Her mind- 

Lena grits her teeth and screws her eyes shut. 

“Breathe. You are here, and you are real.” 

It's not Winston, with his big hands and gruff sincerity, but the calming timbre is there. It's just enough. 

“I am here with you.”

The slight hum under the Omnic's metal skin feels like a pulse. 

“You are real. Your nightmares are not.”

Lena has never felt so vulnerable. She stands in the hallway of a recently reactivated watchpoint, shaking from a trauma she's tried to put behind her so many times. 

“Now, I'm going to ask you some questions, alright?”

She shudders again. The simple tank top and shorts she sleeps in feel inadequate as armor. 

“You don't have to answer out loud. Just tell yourself the answers.” There is a reassuring click as Zenyatta pulls her hands upwards. “It is a therapeutic technique. Open your eyes when you are ready to begin.” 

Gritting her teeth, Lena opens her eyes, still not sure she trusts them to not betray her feelings, her confusion, her panic. 

The dim glow of Zenyatta's lights mirrors that of her accelerator. His immobile face is watching hers, patient and understanding. He nods. 

“First, list five things you can see.”

Zenyatta's face. 

Her accelerator's light.

The dim hallway lights. 

The door behind the Omnic. 

His hands clasped around hers. 

“Second, list four things that you can hear.” 

The very faint buzzing of electricity. 

Her own breathing. 

The creak of the carpet under her and Zenyatta's feet.

A soft ping from her accelerator. 

“Third, list three things you can smell.”

Carpet cleaner, a day old. 

Sweat, stale on her skin. 

A lingering aroma of oil, probably from Zenyatta. 

“Finally, list two things you can feel.”

Warm metal on her skin. 

Fluffy, too fluffy carpet, under her feet. 

Lena looks up. Zenyatta still holds her hands. He still looks at her in the kindest and most calculating way, gauging her health from the small signs on her face. If he were human, a relieved smile would cross his face. 

“Better?”

“A little.” She's surprised to note her voice is steadier. 

“Good.” He chuckles, sounding vaguely like an Omnic doctor she once met. “Genji... well, he may not be pleased that I told you, but I think it will help.” He releases her hands, and they automatically return to grasping her arms. The hallway is colder than it should be. “Not long after I met him, he had trouble sleeping sometimes as well. Or he would feel... distanced from himself. I learned this technique to help him return to himself.” As he tells her this, his legs lift off the ground and he resumes floating, a rock of tranquility in a sea of human emotion. “I know how much you value Winston's aid, and I will not pry, but I hope that what I have taught you can help you in the future.” 

“I- thank you.” She offers him a weak smile. “I'll, um. I'll try and get back to sleep.” 

“Sleep well, Lena. If you need my help again....”

“I'll call. Um. You won't tell Winston? He worries about me a lot.” 

“If that is what you wish.” 

“Thanks.” 

As he gives her a meditative wave goodbye, she turns and goes back to her room. Her breathing has steadied. Her pulse is no longer a drumbeat in her ears. Her mind has stilled, or at least as much as it ever does for her. 

In the morning, she resolves, she is going to give Winston a hug. And perhaps she will talk to Genji.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, I know, it's a little sloppy, but I've been trying to get myself back into the swing of writing and I needed a good way to deal with some problems of my own I've been having lately, so... I guess I write hurt/comfort things to cope with stress. That's a thing. Hopefully the way I wrote the thoughts in this makes sense: the idea was to try and capture the disoriented, fragmented feeling you get when you can't think during a panic attack and your thoughts start looping. The weird timey-wimey nature of what happened makes that even more jumbled. 
> 
> Basically I'm loving the cast of Overwatch and how easily they all fit together and relate to one another. Tracer's backstory is... well, not particularly gentle on her psyche, and she acts very together, but I can't imagine she's had an easy time of dealing with it. Zenyatta being, well, Zenyatta, he can't let that sit. 
> 
> Also Tracer is the most huggable Overwatch character, therefore I must write about her.


End file.
